In Words: Necrosphere

- Necrosphere -

- Claudia Ehrhardt -

Necrosphere - January 2002 (by email)

To be honest I never heard about Necrosphere before, but it's always interesting to discover new bands. Hope others think so to... I took the chance to do an interview by email and perhaps it ain't just interesting for people who don't know them at all. So first a little lesson in history....

I know that you started as Cenotaph. Please tell us why you decided to re­name and what happened since! I guess this one you answered already somewhere else, but please...

Cenotaph is such an abused name that we just couldn't go on using it, there were and there are many bands called Cenotaph around the world. When we changed our name we chose Necrosphere 'cause we think it perfectly fits the more extreme and perverted attitude and sound we have now. Necrosphere is a totally different band from Cenotaph (although 3 of us played in Cenotaph), we made a new start and we finally have a steady line-up with everybody involved 100% into extreme music!

Revived is the 1st official full-length release. Why you chose it? What does it mean to you?

The tittle Revived refers to what I told you before, a 2nd birth for the band. Like the phoenix rising from the ashes we started again with increased energy from the ashes of a band which was falling apart because of various problems.
If you read the lyrics you'll notice that the word 'Revived' has also links with some of the themes the songs deal with...

The booklet says that you are responsible for the artwork. Who had the idea and why do you choose Kawashi to realize it?

The idea for the cover was developed by the band. Our drummer knew the guy and we all thought he was able to do a good job (which he did!), but in the end things didn't work out as planned and we had problems with him. He hasn't been that honest with us. But that's another story. Anyway we all think the cover looks great!

Is there any link between the album title and the artwork? Coz there ain't an obvious one.

Of course there is! The girl on the cover is being revived into the Necrosphere, a place beyond life and death!

Lyrically you choose the splatter genre and you use violent words... What inspires you? Please tell us about the lyrics.

It is true that some of our songs deal with gore, but we also write about different things such as sex, perversions, religion, etc. Probably in the future the lyrics will become more personal and obscure, but still remaining sick! About gore. Well, we all love horror movies, especially Italian ones (we have big VHS collections of horror flicks) and they are a big influence when it comes to writing lyrics, those strong scenes fit perfectly with our violent & brutal sound!

It seems that the splatter movie genre fascinates you. Have you ever thought about doing something in this non-musical genre?

As I told you we're horror maniacs. For the moment we just collect and watch movies or read books, but it would be great if we could get involved directly with the movie-making. I'm afraid that this will remain just a dream anyway...

Unfortunately these days doing videos makes no sense. Would you like to do a video for one or the other song?

You're dead right! Making a video is really expensive and if you make one then nobody will play it on the air, I mean, MTV doesn't play metal videos anymore (except for some "big stars") and metal in general is considered too extreme to get on TV, then what's the sense of making a video?!

Which songs would you choose for a video? And why?

If we had to do one, probably Biomechanical Death Machine would be the choice, 'cause it's one of everybody's favorites and the video would feature hordes of biomechanized zombies rising from the dead to destroy the living in the real gore tradition!

I guess that slayer is one of your main influences. Why you covered Necrophiliac?

Yes, slayer are GODS for us! So it felt natural for us to pay homage to them by recording one of their songs. We were driving back home from Vienna when we began discussing which song to choose and Necrophiliac was on the CD player, all of a sudden we realized that was the perfect one!

Can we expect other cover versions in future?

When we rehearse we sometimes play covers of other bands we love, so it wouldn't be any surprise if we decided to record some more.

What about playing live? Do you have the chance to play live in Italy? Is a tour planned? Or festivals?

We haven't had many chances to play live up until now 'cause here in Italy there aren't many places for an extreme band to play a decent gig; unless you get the chance to support some "big name" you're doomed to play in very small venues (sometimes with no P.A.) with very little promotion. No tour is planned at the moment, just one date in Croatia on the 25th of January, we really hope to play live as much as possible in the near future.

If you had the chance to choose a band to tour with, which band would you choose?

Each member of the band would give you a different answer. Maybe Incantation or Cannibal Corpse. Really difficult question. My own choice would be Angel Corpse (too bad they split up!)